Author: csgchku

Speaker:
Professor Ying Zhu, Academy of Film, Hong Kong Baptist University

Moderator:
Alvin K. Wong, Department of Comparative Literature, School of Humanities, HKU

Date: Thursday, November 10, 2022
Time: 5:00 pm (Hong Kong Time)
Venue: On Zoom and F2F

Hollywood in China unravels the century-long relationship between Hollywood and China. Blending cultural history, business, and international relations, the book charts multiple power dynamics and teases out how competing political and economic interests as well as cultural values are manifested in the art and artifice of filmmaking on a global scale, and with global ramifications. The book is an inside look at the intense business and political maneuvering that is shaping the movies and the U.S.-China relationship itself—revealing a headlines-grabbing conflict that is playing out not only on the high seas, but on the silver screen.

Ying Zhu is the founder and chief editor of the peer-reviewed academic journal Global Storytelling: Journal of Digital and Moving Images. The recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, she is the author of four books including Hollywood in China: Behind the Scenes of the World’s Largest Movie Market and Two Billion Eyes: The Story of China Central Television, and co-editor of six books including Soft Power with Chinese Characteristics: China’s Campaign for Hearts and Minds. Previously on the faculty at the City University of New York, she is now a professor in the Academy of Film at the Hong Kong Baptist University and an adjunct professor in the School of Arts at the Columbia University.

如金粉深埋：《小團圓》背後的閨秀生命

Speaker: 崔文東 博士  Dr. CUI Wendong (City U)
Moderator: 黃心村 教授  Prof. Nicole HUANG
Date:October 26, 2022 (Wed)
Time: 16:30-18:00pm
Language: Putonghua
Venue: CPD-1.21, Level 1, Central Podium, Centennial Campus, HKU & Zoom

摘要：《小團圓》是張愛玲設置的記憶迷宮，通向過去，也通向未來。藉助小說中的吉光片羽，我們得以確認《金鎖記》、《傾城之戀》、《琉璃瓦》、《相見歡》等其他作品中的女性人物原型，再結合家族檔案與報刊史料，足以鉤沉她們的生命史。這些閨秀或是光彩照人，或是沒沒無聞，皆如金粉沉入歷史的埃塵，惟有張愛玲的文字賦予她們不朽的生命。通過對照真實的與虛構的生命史，我們嘗試解讀張愛玲的文學觀與女性觀。

Eileen Chang’s Little Reunions is a maze of memories that leads to both the past and the future. We can identify the prototypes of female characters in other works such as “The Golden Cangue,” “Love in a Fallen City,” “Glazed Tiles,” and “Joy over the reunion” with the help of the novel’s fragments, and piece together their life histories using family archives and newspapers. All of these women, whether talented or not, are buried like gold sand in the dust of history, but Eileen Chang’s words bring them back to life. By contrasting the real and fictional life histories, we can gain insight into Eileen Chang’s views on literature and on women.

簡介：崔文東       現於香港城市大學中文及歷史學系擔任助理教授一職，從事近現代中國文學研究，尤其關注梁啟超、魯迅等文化巨擘。他於香港中文大學中國語言及文學系取得哲學博士學位，並曾任哈佛燕京學社訪問學人。迄今已在《文學評論》、《漢學研究》、《中國文哲研究集刊》等學術刊物發表論文十數篇，先後獲得教育部人文社會科學研究青年基金項目、香港大學教育資助委員會優配研究金、香港藝術發展局項目資助，並曾兩度榮膺宋淇翻譯研究論文紀念獎。

Cui Wendong is an Assistant Professor at Department of Chinese Language and History, City University of Hong Kong. His area of expertise is modern Chinese literature, with a focus on notable writers like Liang Qichao and Lu Xun. He received his PhD in Chinese Language and Literature from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and served as a visiting fellow at Harvard-Yenching Institute. His research articles have been published in numerous academic journals. He has also twice been the recipient of the Stephen C. Soong Translation Studies Memorial Awards.

This event is held as part of the New Directions in Eileen Chang Studies Lecture Series |
張愛玲研究新方向講座系列 
Co-hosted by School of Chinese and Department of Comparative Literature, HKU
Co-sponsored by Louis Cha Fund for Chinese studies & East/West studies in the Faculty
& Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures (CSGC)

Speaker:
Dr. Melody Jue, Associate Professor of English, University of California, Santa Barbara

Respondent: Dr. Winnie Yee, MALCS Coordinator, Department of Comparative Literature, School of Humanities, HKU
Moderator: Dr. Alvin K. Wong, Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, School of Humanities, HKU

Date: Monday, October 10, 2022
Time: 10:00 am (Hong Kong Time)
Venue: On Zoom

What would media and literary studies look like, underwater? In Wild Blue Media: Thinking Through Seawater (2020), I show how the ocean can be a science fictional environment for defamiliarizing concepts, offering cold and briny contexts in which to rethink what it means to store and organize information. After outlining how scuba diving can be a valuable method in the humanities and media studies, I present an analysis of an underwater structure nicknamed a “bookshelf reef” near UC Santa Barbara. The bookshelf is normally a terrestrial infrastructure of informatic organization; yet by displacing it underwater, I draw attention to the importance of gravity and buoyancy in defining interactions with the bookshelf as an archival infrastructure.

Melody Jue is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of Wild Blue Media: Thinking Through Seawater (Duke University Press, 2020), which won the 2020 Speculative Fictions and Cultures of Science book award. She is the co-editor with Rafico Ruiz of Saturation (Duke Press, 2021) and has published articles in journals including Grey Room, Configurations, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Resilience, and Media+Environment. Her new work explores the mediations of seaweeds in trans-Pacific contexts.

Special book talk in celebration of the 90th anniversary of FPS Library and Eileen Chang’s 102nd birthday.

Speaker: Professor Nicole HUANG 
Date & Time: September 30, 2022 (Fri) 18:00-19:30pm
Language: English
Venue: Multi-purpose Area, 2/F, Main Library & Zoom

This lecture paints an intellectual portrait of Eileen Chang (1920-1995), a major twentieth-century writer and one of the most celebrated alumni in the history of the University of Hong Kong. Chang was educated bilingually from an early age and enrolled in HKU in 1939, majoring in English and History. Her college education abruptly ended two and a half years later by the bloody Hong Kong Battle of December 1941, an experience that would find recurrent expressions in her writings. In May 1942, she returned to Shanghai and became an overnight literary sensation. Two volumes marked her early literary success: a collection of short stories and novellas entitled Romances and a book of prose entitled Written on Water. Her “tales of two cities”—Shanghai and Hong Kong—were some of the most endearing narratives in her early literary output, contrasting two urban environments as mirrors and shadows of one another. Three long narratives stand out in her later writings, two of which were written in English— The Fall of the Pagoda and The Book of Change—and the third, the most critically acclaimed of all, was written in Chinese, titled Little Reunions. Significant portions of these long narratives were a retelling of her wartime Hong Kong experience. Her time as a HKU college student consistently found its many manifestations in a literary career deeply haunted by memories of war, migration, and permanent loss. In researching this project, I have tapped into hidden treasure housed in the HKU libraries and archives. I seek to redefine Chang’s solitary experiment as an important chapter in our collective knowledge of global Chinese and global English.

The event arrangements may be adjusted according to the prevailing pandemic prevention measures.

The book is now available for sale at the Press, a special 25% discount for the book is from 1 September to  2 October 2022. Don’t miss it. 

Speaker:
Dr. Lucas Bender, Assistant Professor of Chinese Literature, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, Yale University

Moderator:
Dr. Beth Harper, Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, School of Humanities, HKU

Date: Monday, September 26, 2022
Time: 7:00 pm (Hong Kong Time)
Venue: On Zoom
Click here for the event recording.

Du Fu 杜甫 (712–770) came of age in an era marked by confidence that the accumulated wisdom of the cultural tradition could guarantee Chinese civilization’s continued stability and prosperity. When, however, the Tang dynasty collapsed in 755 to An Lushan’s rebellion, he began to question contemporary assumptions about the role that tradition should play in making sense of experience and defining human flourishing.

In this book, Lucas Bender argues that Du Fu’s evolving and experimental poetics in the wake of the rebellion have played a pivotal role in the transformation of Chinese poetic reading from the Tang to the present day. In reimagining his relationship to tradition, Du Fu anticipated important philosophical transitions from the late-medieval into the early-modern period and laid the template for a new paradigm of poetry’s relationship to ethics. His work also presents an interesting model for adapting to a fact of human moral experience that is increasingly obvious in our own time: that the moral ideas writers have inherited and use to make sense of their experience will, in most cases, not be those through which their works will be received and interpreted in generations to come.

Lucas Rambo Bender is Assistant Professor of Chinese Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University. Having recently published a monograph on Du Fu, he is now working on medieval Chinese frontier poetry and on the legacy of so-called “Obscure Learning” (Xuanxue 玄學).

張愛玲研究新方向講座系列 

張愛玲研究新方向講座系列 New Directions in Eileen Chang Studies Lecture Series
Co-hosted by School of Chinese and Department of Comparative Literature, HKU
Co-sponsored by Louis Cha Fund for Chinese studies & East/West studies in the Faculty
& Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures (CSGC)

《秧歌》與二十世紀中國小説
The Rice Sprout Song and 20th Century Chinese Fiction
分享嘉賓Speaker: 許子東 教授  Prof. XU Zidong 
主持人Moderator: 林姵吟 博士  Dr. LIN Pei-yin
Date: September 21, 2022 (Wed)
Time: 17:30-19:00pm
Language: Putonghua
Venue: CPD-2.58, Level 2, Central Podium, Centennial Campus, HKU & Zoom

Special book talk in celebration of the 90th anniversary of FPS Library and Eileen Chang’s 102nd birthday:
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman: Eileen Chang at the University of Hong Kong
Speaker: Prof. Nicole HUANG 
Date: September 30, 2022 (Fri)
Time: 18:00-19:30pm
Language: English
Venue: Multi-purpose Area, 2/F, Main Library & Zoom

Scholar Seminar:
如金粉深埋：《小團圓》背後的閨秀生命
Like Buried Gold Sand: Women’s Life Histories Behind Little Reunions
Speaker: 崔文東 博士  Dr. CUI Wendong (City U)
Moderator: 黃心村 教授  Prof. Nicole HUANG
Date: October 26, 2022 (Wed)
Time: 16:30-18:00pm
Language: Putonghua
Venue: CPD-1.21, Level 1, Central Podium, Centennial Campus, HKU & Zoom

Scholar Seminar:
張愛玲筆下的香港戰時聲景
Eileen Chang’s Soundscape Writing of Wartime Hong Kong
Speaker: 郭詩詠  博士  Dr. KWOK Sze Wing (HSUHK)
Moderator: 黃心村 教授  Prof. Nicole HUANG
Date: November 23, 2022 (Wed) 
Time: 16:30-18:00pm
Venue: CPD-1.21, Level 1, Central Podium, Centennial Campus, HKU
Language: Putonghua

Roundtable Discussion:
世界的張愛玲與張愛玲的世界
Worlding Eileen Chang and Eileen Chang’s World
Speakers: 
何杏楓 教授  Prof. HOYAN Hang Fung Carole (CUHK)
黃念欣 教授  Prof. WONG Nim Yan (CUHK)
Moderator: 林姵吟 博士  Dr. LIN Pei-yin
Date: February 7, 2023 (Tue) 
Time: 16:30-18:30pm
Language: Putonghua
Venue: Level 2 Multi-Purpose Area (Ingenium), Main Library, Main Campus, HKU

Scholar Seminar
上海和台灣報刊中的「張愛玲」想像
The Imagination of “Eileen Chang” by Newspapers in Shanghai and Taiwan
Speaker: 梁慕靈博士  Dr. LEUNG Mo-Ling, Rebecca (HKMU)
Moderator: 黃心村 教授  Prof. Nicole HUANG
Date & Time: March 8, 2023 (Wed) 16:30-18:00
Venue: CPD-1.21
Language: Putonghua

影像、衣飾和邊界——張愛玲的《對照記》及其他
Images, Clothing, and Boundaries: Eileen Chang’s An Album of Mutual Reflections and Others
分享嘉賓 Speaker: 黃子平 教授  Prof. HUANG Ziping
主持人 Moderator: 黃心村 Prof. Nicole HUANG
Date & Time: April 18, 2023 (Tue) 16:30-18:00pm
Language: Putonghua
Venue: CPD-2.19, Level 2, Central Podium, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU

Self-translation and the Notion of Filiality in Eileen Chang’s Fiction
Speakers: Prof. Christopher LUPKE (University of Alberta) & Dr. Jessica Tsui-yan LI (York University) 
Commentators: Dr. LIN Pei-yin & Prof. Nicole HUANG (HKU)
Date & Time: July 3, 2023 (Mon) 16:00-18:00pm
Language: English
Venue: Level 2 Multi-Purpose Area (Ingenium), Main Library, Main Campus, HKU

在樓窗的燈光裡：張愛玲的家居剪影──從《傳奇》增訂本展開
In the Light of the Window: Eileen Chang’s Interior Silhouette from the Revised Edition of Romances
分享嘉賓 Speaker: 蘇偉貞 教授 Prof. SU Wei-chen
主持人 Moderator: 林姵吟 博士 Dr. LIN Pei-yin
Date & Time: September 27, 2023 (Wed) 16:30-18:00pm
Language: Putonghua
Venue: CBC, Chow Yei Ching Building, Main Campus, HKU

倒掉的塔，凋萎的花：張愛玲文學中的愛情形式
Fallen Pagoda, Withered Flower: Forms of Love in Eileen Chang’s Literature
分享嘉賓 Speaker: 濱田麻矢 教授 Prof. Maya HAMADA
主持人 Moderator: 黃心村 教授 Prof. Nicole HUANG
日期時間 Date & Time: October 25, 2023 (Wed) 16:30-18:00pm
語言 Language: Putonghua
地點 Venue (UPDATED): CPD-3.28, Central Podium Level 3, Centennial Campus, HKU

彼岸花：1950年代後張愛玲的跨界文藝實踐
Flower of the Other Shore: Eileen Chang’s Border-crossing Literary Practice after the 1950s
分享嘉賓 Speaker: 趙家琦 博士 Dr. CHAO Chia-chi 
主持人 Moderator: 林姵吟 博士 Dr. LIN Pei-yin
日期時間 Date & Time: November 30, 2023 (Thu) 16:30-18:00pm
語言 Language: Putonghua
地點 Venue: CPD-LG.07, Central Podium LG/F, Centennial Campus, HKU

張愛玲與中國寫作傳統
Eileen Chang and Chinese Narrative Traditions
分享嘉賓 Speaker: 王風 教授 Prof. WANG Feng (Peking U)
主持人 Moderator: 黃心村 教授 Prof. Nicole HUANG (HKU)
日期時間 Date & Time: February 7, 2024 (Wed) 16:30-18:00pm
語言 Language: 普通話 Putonghua
地點 Venue: CBA, Chow Yei Ching Building, Main Campus, HKU

不可能三角與不現身的說書人：張愛玲《傳奇》的讀寫攻略
Impossible Trinity & Invisible Story Teller: A Creative Writing Approach to Eileen Chang’s Romances
分享嘉賓 Speaker:  邵棟 博士 Dr. Shawn SHAO (HKMU)
主持人 Moderator: 黃心村 教授 Prof. Nicole HUANG (HKU)
日期時間 Date & Time: March 26, 2024 (Tue) 16:30-18:00pm
語言 Language: 普通話 Putonghua
地點 Venue: KK101, K.K. Leung Building, Main Campus, HKU

“輕微的騷動”: 張愛玲小說裡的細節與女性
“Subtle Stirrings”: Xijie and Women in Eileen Chang’s Fiction
分享嘉賓 Speaker: Prof. Jiwei XIAO (Fairfield University) 
主持人 Moderator: Prof. LIN Pei-yin (HKU) 
日期時間 Date & Time: April 18, 2024 (Thu) 16:30-18:00pm
語言 Language: English
地點 Venue: CPD-7.30, 7/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU

《異鄉記》中的多維風景
Layered Landscapes in Chronicle of a Strange Land
分享嘉賓 Speaker: 吳曉東 教授 Prof. WU Xiaodong (Peking U) 
主持人 Moderator: 林姵吟 教授 Prof. LIN Pei-yin (HKU) 
日期時間 Date & Time: April 25, 2024 (Thu) 16:30-18:00pm
語言 Language: 普通話 Putonghua
地點 Venue: KK102, K.K. Leung Building, Main Campus, HKU

何以還魂：將張愛玲譯歸中文的經驗反思
Impersonating Eileen Chang: A Translator’s (Im)possible Task of Bringing Home Her English Works
分享嘉賓 Speaker: 鄭遠濤 先生 Mr. Silvano ZHENG
主持人 Moderator: 黃心村 教授 Prof. Nicole HUANG (HKU) 
日期時間 Date & Time: May 13, 2024 (Mon) 16:30-18:00pm
語言 Language: 普通話 Putonghua
地點 Venue: CBA, Chow Yei Ching Building, Main Campus, HKU

Affective Cosmopolitanism: Comparison Methodology and a Case Study
Speaker: Sijia Yao, Assistant Professor of Chinese Language and Culture, Soka University of America
Moderator: Alvin K. Wong, Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, HKU
Date: Thursday, May 16, 2024
Time: 4:30 pm Hong Kong Time
Venue: CRT-7.30, 7/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, HKU

現在海枯石爛也很快
——劇場導演林奕華談張愛玲與時間（的消失）
Edward Lam on Eileen Chang and (the Disappearance of) Time
分享嘉賓 Speaker: Mr. Edward LAM 林奕華
主持人 Moderator: Prof. Nicole HUANG 黃心村 (Dept. of Comparative Literature, HKU)
與談人Respondent: Prof. Pei-yin LIN 林姵吟 (School of Chinese, HKU)
日期時間 Date & Time: September 21, 2024 (Sat) 15:00-17:00pm
語言 Language: Putonghua 普通話 
地點 Venue: Rayson Huang Theatre, Main Campus, HKU 香港大學黃麗松講堂

娜拉做母親後怎樣？——缺位的“新母親”
How would Nora be a Mother?: The Absent “New Mother” in May Fourth China
分享嘉賓 Speaker: Prof. LIN Zheng 林崢 (Sun Yat-sen University)
主持人 Moderator: Prof. Nicole HUANG 黃心村(Dept. of Comparative Literature, HKU)
日期時間 Date & Time: March 6, 2025 (Thu) 14:30-16:00pm (HKT)
語言 Language: Putonghua 普通話 
地點 Venue: CRT-4.36, 4/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU 
香港大學百周年校園逸夫教學樓4樓436室（文學院會議室）

同學少年都不見——鉤續張愛玲閨蜜的傳奇
Whatever Happened to Fatima? An Eileen Chang’s “Character” in Search of a Closure
分享嘉賓 Speaker: Mr. LIM Fong Wei 林方偉  (Senior Correspondent at Lianhe Zaobao)
主持人 Moderator: Prof. Nicole HUANG 黃心村 (Dept. of Comparative Literature, HKU)
日期時間 Date & Time: March 26, 2025 (Wed) 16:30-18:00pm (HKT)
語言 Language: Putonghua 普通話 
地點 Venue: CPD-1.24, Central Podium Level 1, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU

雪泥鴻爪：五〇年代張愛玲的香港生涯
Traces of a Wild Swan: Eileen Chang in 1950s Hong Kong
分享嘉賓 Speaker: Mr. XIE Youkun 謝有坤 先生 (「張迷客廳」博主)
與談人 Discussants:
Prof. Nicole HUANG 黃心村 教授 (Dept. of Comparative Literature, HKU)
Prof. LEUNG Mo Ling 梁慕靈 教授 (School of Arts and Social Sciences, HKMU)
日期時間 Date & Time: April 23, 2025 (Wed) 16:30-18:00pm (HKT)
語言 Language: Putonghua 普通話 
地點 Venue: CPD-1.24, Central Podium Level 1, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU

私人浴室：張愛玲小說中自我、性別與身體的對話空間
Washrooms: Dialogic Spaces of Self, Gender, and Body in Eileen Chang’s Fiction
分享嘉賓 Speaker: 楊佳嫻 教授 Prof. YANG Chia-Hsien (Dept. of Chinese Literature, National Tsing Hua University)
主持人 Moderator: 林姵吟 教授 Prof. LIN Pei-yin (School of Chinese, HKU)
日期時間 Date & Time: April 24, 2025 (Thu) 16:30-18:00pm (HKT)
語言 Language: 普通話/國語 Mandarin
地點 Venue: CPD-3.28, Central Podium Level 3, The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU

當摩登女郎遇上張愛玲
When the Modern Girl Meets Eileen Chang
分享嘉賓 Speaker: Prof. SANG Tze-lan 桑梓蘭 教授 (Dept. of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures, Michigan State University)
主持人 Moderator: Prof. LIN Pei-yin 林姵吟 教授 (School of Chinese, HKU)
日期時間 Date & Time: May 28, 2025 (Wed) 16:30-18:00pm (HKT)
語言 Language: 普通話/國語 Mandarin
地點 Venue: CPD-1.24, Central Podium Level 1, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU

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《秧歌》與二十世紀中國小説

分享嘉賓Speaker: 許子東 教授  Prof. XU Zidong 
主持人Moderator: 林姵吟 博士  Dr. LIN Pei-yin

Date: September 21, 2022 (Wed)
Time: 17:30-19:00pm
Language: Putonghua
Mode of Delivery: Face-to-face and Zoom
Venue: CPD-2.58, Level 2, Central Podium, Centennial Campus, HKU / Zoom

摘要：二十世紀中國小說裡最主要最成功的文學形象，是知識分子，農民和幹部官員。「士官民」三者之間的複雜矛盾關係，不僅貫穿在上世紀「革命文學」主題之中，也支配著百年小說的各種變化發展。從這個角度閱讀張愛玲在香港創作的中英文小說《秧歌》，我們可以重新檢討張愛玲作品與20世紀中國文學主流的關係。

The most successful literary images in 20th century Chinese fiction are those of intellectuals, peasants, and cadres. The complicated and contradictory relationship between intellectuals, party officials, and people not only penetrates the themes of 20th century “revolutionary literature” but also dominates the various changes and developments of modern Chinese fiction of previous century. By reading Eileen Chang’s The Rice Sprout Song, a novel she composed in Hong Kong, from this perspective, this lecture reappraises the relationship between Chang’s works and the mainstream 20th century Chinese literature.

簡介：許子東，華東師大、UCLA碩士，香港大學博士。前香港嶺南大學中文系主任、現任華東師大中文系紫江講座教授、香港大學中文學院榮譽教授。著有《郁達夫新論》、《當代小說閱讀筆記》、《香港短篇小說初探》、《張愛玲的文學史意義》、《越界言論》、《許子東現代文學課》、《細讀張愛玲》、《重讀二十世紀中國小說》等十幾種。本學期在香港大學中文學院開設「魯迅研究」專題課程。

Prof Xu received his MAs from East China Normal University and UCLA, and his PhD from HKU. He was previously the Head of the Department of Chinese at Lingnan University. Currently, he is Zijiang Chair Professor at East China Normal University and Honorary Professor at the School of Chinese, HKU. He has published extensively on modern and contemporary Chinese literature. 

This event is held as part of the New Directions in Eileen Chang Studies Lecture Series |
張愛玲研究新方向講座系列 
Co-hosted by School of Chinese and Department of Comparative Literature, HKU
Co-sponsored by Louis Cha Fund for Chinese studies & East/West studies in the Faculty
& Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures (CSGC)

Speaker: Professor Jean Ma, Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University
Moderator: Professor Nicole Huang, Department of Comparative Literature, HKU

Date: Monday, 5 September 2022
Time: 5:00 – 6:30 pm (GMT +8)
Venue: On Zoom and F2F

This talk showcases Jean Ma’s forthcoming book At the Edges of Sleep: Moving Images and Somnolent Spectators. The book explores the deeply interconnected relationship between moving image art and the state of slumber. It engages each pole of this relationship in a wide frame: in the category of moving image art, Jean Ma includes examples from the earliest years of filmmaking, avant-garde and experimental films, art cinema features, and contemporary moving-image installations in non-theatrical spaces of art exhibition. To unpack the meanings of sleep, she turns thinkers from neuroscience, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and literature, along with filmmakers and film theorists. At the Edges of Sleep considers sleep as both a subject matter portrayed on the screen and a state induced in the audience. It composes a history of sleeping in the movies, from George Méliès to Andy Warhol to contemporary Asian cinema; traces theories of spectatorship from the theater to the gallery, centering on the notion of a viewer who is not fully awake; and maps a broad cultural shift away from a longstanding negative view of sleep as absence, deficiency, or interruption, and towards a more positive conception of sleep as an artistic, social, and political resource.

Jean Ma has published books on the temporal poetics of Chinese cinema (Melancholy Drift: Marking Time in Chinese Cinema), singing women on film (Sounding the Modern Woman: The Songstress in Chinese Cinema), and the relationship of cinema and photography (Still Moving: Between Cinema and Photography). She is the coeditor of “Music, Sound, and Media,” a book series at the University of California Press. Her writing has appeared in Camera Obscura, Criticism, Film Quarterly, Grey Room, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, and October. At Stanford University, she is Professor of Art and Art History, Area Director of Film and Media Studies, and the Denning Family Director of the Stanford Arts Institute. Her forthcoming book At the Edges of Sleep: Moving Images and Somnolent Spectators was the recipient of an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writer Book Grant.